The success of MGM's "The Wizard of Oz" caused 20th Century-Fox to put Shirley in "The Blue Bird," which turned out to be her very first box office flop. The public could not accept Shirley playing a brat, and the lack of exciting musical numbers did not help either. Still, this movie does have its merits and has grown in esteem over the years. When the film failed to earn the money Darryl Zanuck hoped it would, he put Shirley into the low budget “Young People,” which would be Shirley’s last film for the studio until 1949.
